Justice System

Issue: The Shootout At A Federal Prison Should Never Have Happened.

Bad enough that a fatal shootout between federal agents and guards occurred at the Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution. Now comes word that the incident could have been prevented altogether.

Three years ago, U.S. Justice Department investigators warned the federal Bureau of Prisons that its detention officers should be searched to keep drugs, guns and other contraband out of the prisons. Bureau officials, along with leaders of a union representing federal prison guards, dismissed the recommendation as an unnecessary threat to employee morale.

The bureau now is reconsidering its stance, but that better-late-than-never decision just doesn't cut it. A federal agent and a prison guard are dead, and another employee was seriously injured in a gun battle that shouldn't have happened. But it did, and now there's blood on the bureau's hands.

Unlike in Florida prisons, the bureau doesn't search its guards for guns or contraband unless there is suspicion of wrongdoing by a specific employee. The no-search policy allowed guards at the federal Tallahassee facility to allegedly operate a sex ring in which the guards had sex with female inmates in exchange for liquor, drugs and money.

A federal grand jury earlier this month handed up indictments on six prison guards who were unaware that their operation had been uncovered until federal agents showed up at the prison with arrest warrants. One of the guards pulled a gun, and that's when a routine arrest at a federal prison became a bizarre and unlikely place for a fatal gun battle.

The shootout embarrassed corrections and law enforcement officials and angered several members of Congress who want bureau officials to do far more than reconsider changing a very flawed policy.

If bureau officials won't scrap their no-search policy and improve prison security, then Congress should put a more stringent search policy into law.

BOTTOM LINE: The absurd policy that allows guards to bring guns and contraband into federal prisons must change.